There was a time, in the not too distant past, when every Londoner would own a copy of the “A-Z of London.” The comprehensive book is a collection of city road maps, clearly indexed and easy to use. Navigating this modern metropolis still based on a medieval road system of winding passage ways and narrow streets requires some guidance even for those who have lived here all their lives. Its familiar cover could be seen tucked in between the front seats or along the rear window shelf in every car.
Over the past 2 or 3 years, the A-Z has started to give way to computerised satellite navigation systems. I don’t like my Sat Nav much. The female voice is disapproving and curt. I call her Fiona. I picture her hidden in the back seat; severely dressed in an itchy woollen suit, hair pulled so tightly into a bun that it gives her a perpetual headache. She calls out directions is a cold and pained voice.
Fiona tells me to turn left when I know for a fact the shortest route is to turn right. When I fail to follow her advice she omits a computerised sigh and tuts, “Turn around if IT IS SAFE TO DO SO…turn around…oh OK then, just ignore me…that’s so typical of you.” We spend the next ten minutes in silence until she offers, “And you leave me in the car anytime we go anywhere.”
My old A-Z gives me no such grief. I do mean old, by the way. The Londoner’s navigation bible is updated annually but I have maintained my old copy from the 1980s. Hence many of the newer streets and routes are not listed in the book. Friends riding in the passenger seat flick through the dated and rain-stained edition as if it was a carnival freak show catalogue. “Look- Monument Way isn’t even on here. And the Docklands- they don’t exists! Look!” I keep my eyes firmly focussed on the road as I know the edition’s limitations. “Turn to page 67,” I offer “It says Hic Sunt Dracones: Here Be Dragons.”
It doesn’t really.
This is a good point to offer my apologies, dear readers, for the sporadic regularity of recent blogs. Catharsis has always been at the root of HeadLines but even personal spiritual cleansing must take a back seat occasionally; when the demands of my professional and family life demand so. The past few weeks have been such a time.
Sometime between now and Halloween, the school office phone will ring and the 24 hour notice of Her Majesty’s inspectorate returning to our school for a sixth time in 22 months will be given. This is a monumental inspection for us. One of three things will happen in the wake of that two day HMI visit:
a) the school will be removed from its failing category (the hope).
b) the school will be deemed to be improving and will be placed in a border-line failing category, to be visited again in the Spring (disappointing but possible).
c) the school will be deemed to still be failing and will be closed (the option that wakes me up at 3am in a cold sweat).
At the moment the staff and I are scrutinising every weakness and setting a plan or a road map in place for improving each challenge. As a result, much of my day is pouring over data, trying to find patterns or something we have not identified which will make a difference. I don’t see the children much either at school or at home. That saddens me but needs must and all that.
I wrote the other day about how I explained our revolutionary learning trajectory system to Pastor Modetso. This strategy is a bit of a gamble and means we have bitten off quite a lot ahead of the pending inspection. Because the system threw up previously unknown challenges, the road map for the school needs to be amended accordingly.
We are in unchartered waters. I am relying on every skill, every intuition and experience I have had in 14 years of Headship to navigate the tricky passage ahead. There is no Sat Nav. Fiona is not calling from across my glass box of an office; “Convert the National sub levels for children with autism to average point scores…and do it for all 10 year old Pakistani boys too, they are behind the pace of the rest of the class….turn left….left…..LEFT…oh never mind…turn around if it is safe.”
At least she got a chance to get out of the car and stretch her legs.
Instead I rely on my wits. It is a gamble and I know it. I remind myself that the great leaps of history have frequently been leaps of faith. I keep the faith.
In my battered Japanese van, Fiona is unplugged from the cigarette lighter and sleeps. She is lying down with a headache. All that disapproving is wearisome.
The old A-Z sits in the inner-door compartment: its pages brown and curling. It is a trusted tool and travelling companion. Keeping my eyes firmly focussed on the road, I let my hand drop and stroke the binding. The book whispers, “Hic Sunt Dracones” as my commute home is filled with the solitary and silent thoughts of the average point scores of Pakistani boys. I stop at a red traffic light and for a split second think it might be the red glow of a dragon’s open mouth.
I mouth silently in traffic.“Keep the faith. Hold your nerve. Keep the faith.“ It has become a mantra.
Keep the Faith,
The Head
Head Lines 